Mid-Year's Resolutions

Things in my life are actually going fairly well at the moment, despite how hyperbolic I can be about ongoing problems I think I’m on a fairly steady upward trajectory.

In the past 12 months I’ve:

• Stopped drinking entirely, coming up on 9 months continuous sobriety, with a previous 3 months of drinking once in the month.
• Lost a ton of weight, mostly as a result of not drinking
• Went on more dates and did more socialising than I had in the previous 5 years combined.
• Read some very good books
• Got into writing in a big way
• Picked up some new, rewarding hobbies and stuck with them
• Completely stopped looking at image boards, left a number of toxic IRC channels and other spaces, generally cleaned up my internet use

We’re at the mid point of the year now and I’m looking around at where I am and taking stock, there are a lot of things I still don’t really like about myself and my life, and I’d like to address some of them, not all of them, I think some of them are not really things that can be fixed right now, but I’d like to look at the ones I can do something about. that means:

• Making some significant changes to the structure of my life

  • I feel like I spend 90% of my free time on my least interesting interests, purely because they’re the easiest things to pursue.

  • I have a ton of things I want to get deeper into, books to read, things to write, routes to run, mountains to climb, meals to cook, but I spend most of my time watching and reading internet slop, mindless cow feed.

  • I would like to make a real attempt to change that. Stopping drinking was a good start and a necessary first step to be able to do this, now to address the structural issues preventing it happening.

Some enabling actions for the above

• Decenter the computer in my life; probably mothball my desktop for a while, put my laptop in a bag when not in use, find a space for it where it’s easy to reach but not in direct sight
• Get rid of or castrate the smartphone, however I do that
• Create a comfy reading and working environment, instead of the cramped, grubby desk I do most things at currently
• Spend less time at home and more time in a third space (Public library/quieter coffee shop/local park etc. etc.)

Some other things I want to do:

• Stop buying shit

• Stop using fucking twitter

  • I currently lurk twitter because I fooled myself into thinking I could just look at the one or two accounts I like for actually interesting content, but its shit and corrosive and designed to destroy your free time, so like image boards its got to go.
  • Currently weaning down and trying to find alternative sources for the small amount of positive stuff I actually do get out of it, mostly recommendations for interesting books/games/music, if you have any recommendations in this regard send me them and I’ll bookmark them

• Stop looking at porn entirely

  • By porn I mean media that is primarily or solely designed to be sexually stimulating with any other purpose or artistic merit being at best a definitively secondary consideration
  • I’m not anti sex, or anti masturbation, I’m not a prude either, I just find porn kind of gross and degrading, and the more I think about it the more uncomfortable it makes me feel
  • I’m not sure I believe that its impossible to interact with porn in a healthy manner, and I don’t believe all forms of pornography are inherently exploitative, but I am very ambivalent about my relationship with it
  • I think even if a healthy relationship with pornography is possible its very uncommon and most people including myself would be better off not engaging with it at all

• Do at least one practical electronics project

• Get serious about marathon training